Gail Grinnell

Gail Meyer Grinnell

(American, 1950 to present)

BFA 1988, University of Washington, Seattle WA, USA.

For the majority of her career, Gail Grinnell has been known for her large-scale immersive assemblages created to interact with the architecture of the site. A humble translucent non-woven material found in her mother’s sewing basket is the ground for the hand cut drawings that form the building blocks for each installation. She repurposes this archival material whose original use was to lend strength to construction projects of all kinds from clothing, to buildings and landscape work on a municipal scale. The nearly weightless drawings are pinned together under light tension to form a large precisely balanced form that interacts with the light and proportions of the host space and the people who visit.

Her working life has alternated with a steady stream of artist residencies and the development of site-specific temporary installations in art museums and other dedicated art spaces. In 2022 she produced “Fiat Lux” for the San Juan Island Museum of Art, San Juan Island, WA, USA. In 2024 she is scheduled to create two installations, one in January at the Shaw Gallery, Weber State University, Ogden, UT, USA and the second in the summer at the Ballinglen Museum of Art, Ballycastle, County Mayo, Ireland.

Grinnell’s work has been published in Sculpture Magazine, Art LTD, Fiber Arts, The Seattle Times, The Seattle PI, The Stranger, Willamette Week, Art Week, City Arts and Seattle Magazine in addition to exhibition catalogues for her large-scale installation work.